Serving the East Side, full time, since 1983

HOW TO BUY A HOUSE

A very minimal part of my job is to find then show then evaluate a house. The process is far more complex than just that. Some agents tag themselves as Real Estate Consultants. I think that sounds hokey … accurate, but hokey.

Buyers who go sign to from sign and agent to agent don’t benefit from the Consultant part. They get a person with a license who fills out paper work to buy only that one house. I’ve done a couple of those deals. It is quick, easy, and not much time and very little effort on my part. But certainly not to the advantage of the unsuspecting buyer.

My primary job is to give my clients enough information

to make good decisions for them selves.

Our first step should be to meet and “consult” in my office. Our first step is should NOT be to see a house. There is a myriad of details we need to discuss before we begin our search. My husband says I always ask too many questions. And he has never bought a house through me.

I also have a lot of answers for you.

Buying a house will begin with the money. How much are you going to pay for it? Where will you get the money to pay for it? When will your funds be available to pay for it? At the point in time you & I find the house of your dreams, I need to verify those facts to the listing agent and to the seller. So you need to tell me before we start the home shopping process.

New Mortgage: Most home buyers choose to use a new mortgage to buy their home. Your every day savings & checking account bank is usually a good place to start. Credit Unions have excellent programs available to you. Mortgage brokers are companies which obtain the money they give you from investor sources, often your local bank. Like any profession, the mortgage industry has a few loan officers who are inept, unprofessional, lying thieves. Try not to use one of those folks.

Many loan officers are very good. I have a fairly long list of local men and women who will serve you well.

Old Cash: People who can do it frequently pay cash now and mortgage after the closing. There are reasons. Ask me later. But even if you plan to bring a personal (certified) check to your closing, you still need to prove to the listing agent, to the seller and to me that you do in fact have sufficient cash available.

There are two ways to do that. The easiest is to verify your deposit. You can show a bank statement, but most people are reluctant to do that, and I am reluctant to read it. An easier way is to have your bank branch or investment fund manager write a letter stating that you do have assets necessary to close by a certain date.

A second option is to write a certified check to Coldwell Banker Schweitzer Real Estate for at least 20% of the sale price as a non-refundable (after the inspection & title contingencies are met) Ernest Money Deposit. Normally the EMD, for new mortgage financing, is 3% held by Coldwell Banker Schweitzer Real Estate. That money, of course, is applied to your sale price. Writing a full price check to be used at the closing is not a verification of funds available. Don’t bother.

Now that our money is taken care of, let’s meet in my office to establish your priorities.

Location: Do you want to be east or west of Mack Avenue? North or south of 14 Mile Road? Lake side or land side of Jefferson Avenue? If you are in doubt, I will give you a tour. The same house in different areas will command different prices. But we need to consider your commute to work time. Is it important that your kids walk to school? Is a community with parks your preference? Some parks have boat wells. How big is your boat?

Style: Colonial? Quad level? Ranch? Bungalow? Which has more square footage for price? Are stairs an option? Do you really need a basement? An attached garage? A fireplace? Believe it or not, sometimes a two bedroom house is preferable to a three bedroom house.

Condition: People will buy cleanliness and decorating. I will show you how to look beyond that.

Condo or Co-Op: Know the difference? You will.

Once we have found your perfect house … let me restate that - there is no such thing as a perfect house - no perfect house, no perfect husband, no perfect job, trust me … once we have found the best home we can find for you, you will need to understand the paper work and process involved in buying that home. I can walk you through that too. Preferably long before you need to sign & process.

Now you know why we meet in my office prior to our home shopping tour.

How long will it take? Well, I had one buyer for over five years. Several who said “… sometime next Spring” were in by Christmas. It depends on when you find your house. Your closing will depend on how long it takes for your loan officer gets that job done. The timing is up to you.

I am in no hurry. Remember, I have been doing this full time since May 1983.

When you are ready to begin this fun, frustrating, fantastically interesting process, call me.

Patt Koller

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel Real Estate

313-268-7413

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HOW TO SELL A HOUSE

If I start with Price is the Key Factor, you will not hear another word I say. So I won’t. And even if you price your house 45% below the actually market value and no one knows about it, what good is aggressive pricing?

Promotion and exposure are not paramount but extremely important. And, frankly, it is the fun part of my job. It is also something I will guarantee you, I can do better than you can do yourself and better than most agents I know.

Begin with the basic Multi Listing Systems. Probably 99.5% of listing brokers have their listings inputted into one or more MLSs. Again, most but not all, MLSs transfer that listing to sites like Realtor.com and Google. That is a common factor that expands across the nation. My office subscribes to two systems, the more local, MiRealSource (traditionally Macomb and Eastern Wayne Counties) and to Realcomp (traditionally Oakland & Western Wayne.) Both systems, in some form, can also be accessed by the general public.

In addition, there are countless House for Sale web sites. Ask me to name just a few. Currently the very conservative estimate for buyers starting their home buying search on the internet is 85%.

Print ads always were ineffective for selling your particular house 15 years ago. Print ads are very effective for exposing & promoting the company and the agent. So I do them. More sellers read them to guestimate the value of their own house and to find an agent and/or broker. So I do them well!

Readers bypass boring ads. Internet readers bypass no picture ads. Lots of good pictures and a video tour, providing it is done right & downloads quickly, attract more prospective buyers to preview and then maybe even see your house. That is my forte. I am probably a frustrated photo journalist.

OK, now that we have enticed an agent to show, or a buyer to see your home, you have an important part to play.

Buyers buy cleanliness & decorating. I can provide you tips & tricks (see “It’s Showtime) or you can hire a professional stager. Often, that is money & time well spent.

In this market, availability is a big factor. If I cannot show one house in a certain time frame, I can show two others instead. Your house must be available to see on short notice, at almost any time, with out you there. A lock box & your flexibility will pay off.

OK. Back to price. Again, if your house is priced 45% under market value, and no buyer finds your house, how are you going to find your buyer? When a buyer does find it, through their MLS agent, or the internet or a yard sign or maybe even a paper ad and that buyer cannot get inside, will they buy it? So the price, size, location and style are perfect, but the house was decorated in 1960 and cleaned in 1980, would you be willing to pay today’s market value price for that property? Price your house accordingly.

You, and only you, determine your asking price. Be very careful not to set your target sale price based on what you need to net out, what you paid, what you put into it, and certainly not what you currently owe on that house. A buyer doesn’t care.

You can take into consideration what the property across the street sold for, but remember, that particular buyer is no longer in the market to buy a house.

Also consider timing. Most areas of the country are dealing with a consistent drop in sale prices. If the new neighbor across the street purchased that house today instead of two years ago, he probably would be paying less money. If you are selling your house today, you will likely receive less than you would have two years ago. Please don’t ask me when this market will change. The crystal ball I carry in my brief case is very foggy.

If you over price to test the market today, you will fail.

Base your price on your competition. What is currently available? How long have they been on the market? What are the strongest selling features compared with your house? If you were a buyer today, based on price and amenities, which house would you choose? Now determine your list price.

Again, there are a number of web sites & some newspapers that will show give you that information. Most are semi-accurate and sketchy. None have the detail a good agent can provide.

When I began this job in the early 1980s, we handed our sellers one sheet of paper and said “please sign.” We handed our buyers one sheet of paper and said “sign please.” And then we closed the sale.

Now, some time before picking a price and after finding a buyer, there is an incredulous amount of paper work & follow up phone calls & fairly precision timing that needs to be met. You can hire an attorney to handle the legal aspects and do the rest your self. Or you can contract with a good real estate agent and make your life and your sale much easier.

I love my job. But in my next life I will be an attorney with blond hair, blue eyes and a good singing voice. In this life I am just a great real estate agent with a pretty good cell phone.

Call me any time for more information.

Patt Koller

Coldwell Banker Weir Manuel Real Estate

313-268-7413

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It’s Showtime!

People buy cleanliness & decorating. I have often said to buyers, “This seller will take his dusty knick-knacks & kitty litter box.” or “When this becomes yours, it might not qualify for the cover of Pottery Barn any more.” But people buy what they see & smell.

With that in mind, walk out to the curb of your home. Close your eyes. Think in terms of maybe possibly sort of considering buying this house. Open your eyes. What do you see? Spreading yews as old as the house? Grass that doesn’t know what it is to be thatched? Cracked concrete? Grimy doorknob? Pealing paint? Cloudy windows? A flimsy aluminum storm door with a scratched plastic window & your last-name initial? ($200 to replace.)

Or will you see an interesting structure you really do want to get inside?

There are countless books & articles on how to prepare your home for sale. I can give you a good book. But here are some very basic guidelines that you should heed.

Front door: Wash it. Paint it if paint is pealing. Handle must be bright, little Brasso goes a long way. Make sure the lock works easily. Graphite in the keyhole helps sometimes.

Fence: If your house is surrounded by a rusty chain link, cans of aluminum paint, thick roller & a couple of hours will pay off. And remember, there is nothing charming about rotten rickety pickets. Remove them.

Stairways: Never, never, never leave anything on a stairway. No shoes, cleaning supplies, recycle cans. Nothing. A possible exception might be those cute stairway baskets people have for collecting stuff that goes upstairs. But don’t leave it full to the point of overflowing. This is a safety (think lawsuit) issue as well as cosmetics.

Bathrooms: Must be pristine! LEAVE THE TOILET LID DOWN at all times. It is more sanitary to live like that. And certainly more aesthetically pleasing. If the tub is so old it is beyond grimy no matter how much you scrub, invest the $300 to have it re-glazed. If the faucets & handles are pitted & dull, replace them. A new medicine chest is not expensive. Windex everything daily, including the floor. Maybe buy a new throw carpet & towels to be put out only when you have a showing.

Kitchens: Another point of sale or rejection. If your brand new state of the art gourmet cook’s dream has a thin coat of grease on cherry wood cabinets, or chocolate chip cookie crumbs on granite counter tops, or filmy residue on everything stainless steel, it takes a real buying pro to mentally clean the kitchen before he buys it. Again, Windex every thing every day. There is a wonderful stainless steel cleaner at Bed Bath & Beyond. Little pricey, but well worth it. Wash inside, outside & top of your stove including the burners & knobs and plate behind the knobs. Take all your cutesy and need info in a hurry magnetic stuff off of your refrigerator door … including my card.

Windows: The eyes of your home. Make them sparkle.

Light fixtures, switches, wall sockets: Clean or replace. Look for cobwebs, dead bugs & fingerprints. Bet you’ll find some. Buyers always do.

Clutter: Someday I am going to get the picture of the house with the real estate SOLD sign rider and a line of trash that goes along the curb from one driveway to the next and piled 5 feet high. If you are going to throw it away when you move, throw it away before you list the house. Clutter makes any room appear smaller.

Family Photos: It might seem that lots of 5 X 7 happy snaps make a house feel like a warm friendly family setting, and it sort of does, but not for a stranger. If every shelf and every end table and every wall holds pictures of people it is clutter. A family portrait gallery/grouping might be good on ONE shelf or end table.

Shrines: I can say this because this is a generic piece. It goes to everyone who asks my opinion … and some who don’t. Do Not display any form of shrine. Example: I showed a home once where a young mother had died recently. Besides the countless photographs of the woman & her three young children & husband, there was a table with her elaborately framed portrait, laminated obituary and a pewter urn. Yes, there was also a lighted votive candle. No way could my young couple consider living in that house!

Also try to avoid showing overly religious or political or borderline porno stuff. Semi-nude glamour shots of a sexy seller only go over well if the buyer is … never mind, don’t display them. If you’re interested, ask me. I’ve got real life examples. I am sure those properties got sold. But I will bet they got cleaned up first.

Smells: Please ask someone who does not live in your home to come in & breathe deeply. And open closet doors. And walk down into your basement. Pets & smoking are the usual causes for stinky houses. But there are other things. Running shoes, strange cooking methods, musty old clothes, damp towels. If you light scented candles or boil potpourris buyers will suspect you are covering up some smell. Fix the problem instead. Baking soda is a godsend. Bi-weekly Clorox in basement drains solves that problem.

Wall Paper: Less is better. None is best.

Plastic Plants: Less is better. None is best.

Kitchen Counter Clutter: None.

OK, so maybe you are one of my very few sellers who actually keep your home Show Room Ready at all times. Or maybe you are like the rest of us and actually live in your house on a day-to-day basis. Well, people do their own decorating don’t they? They paint, they clean, and they clutter the house they buy just like the one you are living in. Right?

Go back to my original premises. Close your eyes. Become the buyer. Open your eyes. Will you buy cleanliness and decorating? Or, will you buy the lived-in look?

Just so you know, if you choose, you will always have as much time as you need prior to a showing. If an agent wants to show your home in the next 15 minutes, and you haven’t washed the breakfast dishes or made the beds or cleaned the kitty litter box all week, tell the office secretary you need an extra hour or another day. Whatever. Then wash the dishes, make the beds, clean the kitty litter, and take the kids, the cat, the parrot and go to the park for an hour. And relax! Let the showing agent do the rest of the work for you.

Patt Koller

COLDWELL BANKER WEIR MANUEL REAL ESTATE

313-268-7413